Just as the title says, my temp gauge doesn't move a bit. The white needle rests on that little black needle sticking out from the actual cluster and when I go and start the car the needle moves up about half a centimeter and stays there whether I drive 10mins or 2 hours. Anyone know what could be the problem here and is it an easy do it at home fix? Thank you.

I don't know the diesel engine, but on my 1.2 petrol Brava I have changed the thermostat twice and in addition cleaned and filled the cooling system properly. This is a simple service job for a basic mechanic, you must do it on older cars.

I had a similar problem with the engine not showing hot, and it was a failed thermostat (the one I had changed a couple of years earlier..).

It seems that your gauge is responding but the engine is cooling all the time. I think this will seem worse now that temperatures are colder, maybe you started to use the heater more so this takes more heat from the engine.

You could change (or test) the temperature sensor on the engine, but be sure that it is the one for the gauge and not the one for the engine management.

tempted to say this sounds more like a dodgy connection somewhere, but connection to MES will give the coolant temp and so some more information.
Does the pipe going to the radiator get warm slowly, or suddenly once he engine has been driven to operating temps?

franglais said:

tempted to say this sounds more like a dodgy connection somewhere, but connection to MES will give the coolant temp and so some more information.
Does the pipe going to the radiator get warm slowly, or suddenly once he engine has been driven to operating temps?

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I'm going to have to see how long of a drive I have to do to get those hoses warm,
All I know is that they do very warm, after a 10 min drive I pop open the hood and the actual engine is warm if not hot to the touch, when I'm going up a steep hill I will have the RPMs closer to 2.7k for about 30 seconds, at the top of the hill I put on the heater and it gives me really hot air. Might just be a bad connection somewhere.